弁理士うめざわブログ

特許事務所の弁理士による、特許事務所業界ブログ

Japanese patent attorneys community

All patent attorneys in Japan belongs to JPAA, Japan Patent Attorneys Association.
http://www.jpaa.or.jp/?cat=546

The enrollment is obiligation and essensinal for registration as a patent attorney.

For supporting this association, there are two systems of networks.

The official system is comittee.
A number of comittes are handled under the president and vice presidents of JPAA.
For each committe, there is generally one meeting once a month for about 2 hours.
For this meeting, patent attorneys belonging to each committe gathers
and this gathering brings an oppotunity of networking.
There are a number of comittees, thus most patent attorneys can belong to one of them if requested.
Generally, those who do not join are not interested in this kind of activity.

Since this system is official, the gathering is closed to official members.
However, some overseas patent attorneys may be invited for workshops.

The other one is unofficial groups (kai-ha, factions).
Different from other countries, this unofficial groups are not based on regionality.
These groups are formed originally for election of JPAA excecutive members.
Principally, the members in the same group vote for the same person for the executive.
However, this is one aspect of the group system and many events are held by this group.

The international workshops are generally held through these groups.
Since there are 8 groups and workshops are held by each group.

Some groups often hold it while other groups are not interested in holding the workshop.
After the workshop, the party is held and forms a networking oppotunity.
Many attorneys from US, EU, CN and KR are invited and enjoys networking.
If you are interested, please do not hesitate to contact us.